We will continue publishing Issue 2 next week. Please scroll down for more information about that.

This evening, we have been given the opportunity to speak at Marian Engel Park. Every year, the office of Councillor Joe Mihevc sponsors a movie night in a park named after the dear subject of our graphic novel. This park is located near where Engel’s last novel (and our namesake) is set, Marchmount Rd. known also as Lunatic Villas. They will be screening Despicable Me for families after our presentation. Yes. Despicable Me. We will post notes and photos of the event here, as well as all the fun stuff we come up with for kids! If you’re free, consider dropping by! Here is all the info.

This event was originally planned to celebrate the birthday of Marian Engel, but the original date was rained out. Please enjoy what would have been a timely illustration of how we felt last month when we celebrated her birthday privately!

The delay in issue 2 has been brought to you by U of T summer classes. We will have new pages up next week, though! In the interim, check out an old story by writer David Emery about conquistadors and bears and all kinds of stuff that one can construe as Canadian: http://www3.carleton.ca/inwords/inwords52_DE.html

This one is by a close friend of Lunatic Villas who operates a wonderful online mag: www.thesteelchisel.ca. David, thank you!

In February, Lunatic Villas observed the anniversary of Marian Engel’s passing. Our mandate is to celebrate her life, during a year when she should be alive and aged 82 years old. Unfortunately, 30 years ago we were deprived of this privilege. May is the celebration of her birthday, so next month please take some time to read one of her many novels.

FUNDRAISER

We are proud to announce that our brilliant, dashing illustrator Tanya Decarie aka Twiggy Starblade will be representing Mississauga’s slam collective WE FLIP TABLES at Vancouver’s Verses Festival! A fundraising event for this trip will be held Saturday April 18, 7:30pm at Studio.89 in Mississauga. A limited edition chapbook of Tanya’s writing and illustrations will be available for purchase.

POETRY MONTH

Lunatic Villas writer Peter Gibbon will also be reading poetry at the event! How often do you see the illustrator and writer of a comic book read their poetry in the same evening? The answer is not that often. Full event details via facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1425854367717446/ This month, LV writer Peter Gibbon has a new poem online via The Steel Chisel.

We’ve been living in insulated basements since the beginning of 2015, so there hasn’t been a lot of activity on our blog. We have been busy, though! We have set up a launch event with our friends Meat Locker Editions.

We are in the final stages of production for issue 1! The pages have been inked and scanned. Tanya is currently colouring the panels digitally and Peter is making speech/thought bubbles and scrutinizing fonts. We will be launching online the day of our reading, SUNDAY JANUARY 25th! so if you can’t make it to the Launch Event (see: link to facebook event above) curl up with your laptop or tablet and enjoy the beginning of our year-long story. While you’re at it, why not pick up a Marian Engel book to read between our issues? Try this one for starters.